This order from the court makes me happy and sad at the same time. According to the rules of the palace, the Viscount of the Frontier can have 300 private soldiers, plus 200 county soldiers in the Viscount's fief, which means that I can legally and reasonably control the army of 500, but this scale is obviously not enough, the Welsh Legion alone has more than 600 people, and if you want to continue to expand the army, it will easily arouse the suspicion of the palace in the future. This time, the palace suddenly asked me to form a garrison corps in southern Xinjiang, with 500 soldiers, plus my private soldiers and county soldiers, this is 1,000. Then there are the Border Patrolmen under the Inspector, the Vigilantes, and the private soldiers of the lords of all levels under the Viscount, and the number of troops I can legally stand on is already more than fifteen hundred. ”

"But these 1,500 soldiers are also 1,500 gold-devouring beasts, and in ordinary times, three Tinets can't afford to raise 1,500 soldiers, and the more than 600 horses that feed the Wells Legion have drained our efforts, how easy is it to form a frontier legion? Sorrowful! ”

Pace along the walls of the county city of Tignats, thinking about the court's order to form a new legion, he whispered to his adjutant Odo, who was beside him.

It was February, the harshest chill had faded, the wind and the rising sun at the head of the county town of Tignaz made a thin layer of sweat appear on the foreheads of the two, and Otto who followed behind him couldn't help but pull the collar mask robe and let the cold air blow into the inner lining to relieve the heat, "My lord, Tinets is not a major fortress, Provence in the south has been friendly with the country for so many years, who is it to defend against such a large army?" Of course, we want the army to be as big as possible, but what is the palace plan? Originally, I thought that the palace might be worried about the army of Kodor Province, but a stone fort in the canyon could withstand the invasion of the Kodor army, not to mention the army in the Midsummer Mountains. ”

Art stopped, looking back at the subordinate behind him who had followed him for five years, the lowly commoner who had barely survived on coolies in the labor hut outside Lucesen was gone, replaced by a battle-hardened commander and an independent-minded lord, Otto was still strong, his cheeks were still thin, his beard was still thick, and a few shallow or deep scars dotted on his cheeks looked very resolute.

"Odo, you are the first to follow me, and the one I trust the most, and there is something I can tell you - I have become a sharp sword, a sharp sword to counter the old forces of the Palto." Art said word for word.

"Sharp sword? The Old Forces? Are you saying that the new gentleman is going to be to Balwin~" Otto shut up, he found that his voice was a little loud.

"Soldier, you two go patrol around the city." Odo shouted an order to the soldiers standing guard at the head of the city not far away.

The county soldiers knew that these were high-ranking officers, and they did not dare to disobey the order, so they hurriedly pulled another county soldier on duty out of this section of the city wall.

After the soldiers left, there were no eyes and ears around, and Odo looked left and right before approaching Art, "My lord, are you saying that Count Flender is going to do something against Balwyn's old forces?" This~"

Some words Yate still intends to give the most core cronies around him a thorough understanding, so that they can be somewhat mentally prepared. "Odo, these things will not happen at the moment, after all, the war between the East and West Successors is not over yet, and there will definitely be allies between the old and new forces before Flender gets the entire territory of the Count of Burgundy and obtains the canonization of the throne."

"And after that? For the Balwyn faction, which is deeply entrenched in the Northlands, Flender has always been a foreign monarch, and if Flender wants to get rid of the constraints and completely control the country, then he will definitely wash his power......"

"Balwin is another person who doesn't know forbearance and moderation, he has begun to show the momentum of restricting and suppressing the new monarch, you say the new monarch will keep him with peace of mind?"

Art said and remembered the scene of kneeling in front of Balwin, and a wave of nausea flooded again.

"So the court asked you to continue to expand your strength, with the intention of ...... in the future" Otto understood quickly, and he didn't say much about the rest.

"It's a great opportunity for us, but as you said, raising a thousand troops is not easy, you see, just hanging the lives of more than 4,000 refugees outside the city is a daunting task." Otto sighed heavily as he looked at the long queue of refugees outside the city to receive the life-sustaining soup.

"The matter of forming the Southern Xinjiang Army will be put aside for a while, we have to take advantage of the temporary extinguishment of the war in the east and west to seize the time to let the army repair and recover, and more important than the construction of the army is the construction of the territory, without money, food, materials and weapons, no matter how much the army is not much better than these refugees." Art looked south along the camp beyond the battlements of the wall.

Art suddenly remembered something, retracted his gaze and asked Otto intentionally or unintentionally, "I heard that there are also two factions within our Wells Legion, the old and the new?" You're a lieutenant of the Legion, have you heard of any of these things? ”

Odo was stunned for a moment, "This~ Lord Hui, there are some signs, but it can't be said that the old and new factions are the main thing, mainly because the old guys from the patrol team and the young officers who came out of the military academy have some slight disagreements~"

"We're still small and these problems are just the beginning, but there will definitely be more problems in the future when the number of people surges. You're an adjutant in the army, and there are some things you can tell the guys better than I say, and these signs must be extinguished as soon as possible! ”

"Yes, sir."

Beneath the walls of the county town of Tignats, there are all dilapidated shacks, where more than 4,000 refugees from the war in the north have gathered.

Half a month ago, the county town of Tinies had stopped providing relief to refugees, and the small city of Tinies really could not afford the relief food for thousands of refugees.

Although the so-called relief food is just a meal of clear soup and wheat cereal that is thin enough to make people shine every day, it is already a rare luxury for these desperate refugees.

After eating two meals of relief food to stabilize the hearts of the people, a few official-looking people came out of the team to recruit laborers among the refugees, and the officials made it clear that they were officials under a lord named Atwood Wells in the south, and in order to prevent the poor refugees from starving to death, they recruited everyone to work.

The job of applying for the job was simple—to repair the north-south road for the lord; The payroll is also simple – one meal a day of cereal in a thick soup plus half a pound of rye or grains.

A meal of thick soup and wheat paste can save their old lives, and half a pound of rough rye can still hang the lives of their wives and children, this work can be regarded as saving many refugee families from crisis, 300 young and strong refugees applied in a day, and thousands more rushed to the recruitment point.

In the open space outside the shack in the south of the city, a dozen or so soldiers in cotton armor and armed with short spears guarded two tents full of grain bags, which had just been transferred from Wincheston Manor after receiving Art's authorization today.

There were many refugees outside the tents staring at the tents with salivation, and none of them dared to come forward to loot them, because the heads of the few guys who had been robbed yesterday were still hanging on the roofs of the tents.

Near the tent were three long wooden tables, each of which had two or three soldiers registering refugees who had come to recruit.

Behind a wooden table in the center, an old man with a gray beard and a thin body was poring through a large stack of birch bark, and another younger middle-aged man respectfully explained to the old man, "Old butler, the three hundred young men recruited yesterday have been brought to Wincheston Manor by the Gell brothers, and they will immediately begin repairing the road from Wincheston Manor to Lane Manor; Of the 280 people who have been recruited just after noon today, I estimate that we can recruit about 500 today. I'll send someone to bring them back to Wincheston Manor before evening. ”

After arriving in Tignets yesterday, Art learned of the "cash-for-work" arrangement of the civil administration, and was greatly appreciative, not only agreeing to the deployment of the civil administration, but also expanding the scale of recruitment, and asked Cooper to personally go to Tignets to preside over the recruitment.

"Lynn, starting this afternoon, the pay for recruiting force workers has been cut to a ton of cereal and a third of a pound of rye." Old Cooper gave Lynn back the birch bark and gave it a command.

"Pay cuts? These salaries are low enough, and if they are reduced, I am afraid that many people will not want to do it. "In normal times, a laborer can buy about four pounds of rye a day, but now half a pound of rye a day with a meal of wheat cereal is cheap enough.

"This is the master's order, our recruitment of laborers is only a temporary strategy, the ultimate purpose is to recruit the people, if the refugees who are willing to stay for a third of the pounds of food every day want to be people who really have no way to live, only such people will be honest and obediently rule the people under Tinets. Otherwise, when the war subsides in the future, everyone is clamoring to return to the Northland, then won't we work in vain? ”

Lynn thought about it carefully, and it seemed that there was really some truth, so he didn't say more, and turned his head to explain the new salary to the recruited officials, and sure enough, some people stopped waiting in line when they heard that the salary was reduced......

Tignets City, Hall of Lords.

Viscount Pierre, former governor of Tignets, the former county governor of Burgundy, sat in a daze on the chair of the official room, looking up at the candelabra on the suspended ceiling.

Three days earlier he had received a letter from the Pigeon of Besançon, and the Count of Flanders, who had not yet been recognized, had been impatient to divide the Lord of the Land and arrange his forces, which made Pierre very angry and helpless.

The canonization of the court viscount seems to be a promotion to the title, but in fact, he completely hollows himself out, from a county magistrate with a certain amount of real power to a court lord with only one manor, such an arrangement can be understood as long as you are not blind.

No way, Pierre's tragedy will always come from the deceased Marquis of Ivrea, whether he joins Flender's formation or not, Pierre is unlikely to gain the trust of the new monarch Flender, after all, he is the chief of the palace guard of the Marquis of Ivrea, and it is impossible for a new monarch to reuse the cronies of the old monarch.

Pierre's eyes were gloomy, and he just looked at the candelabra with the ceiling in a daze, and after six or seven years of operation, he still failed to make this poor frontier county rich and strong, unwilling but powerless.

"I still lost what shouldn't belong to me after all~" Pierre let out a long sigh.

At this time, Sir Jerry, the knight and chief of the guard of Pierre, pushed the door and walked in, "My lord, Viscount Art has not yet sent someone to take over the city defense and the treasury, and there are still 180,000 fennig taxes in the treasury, which are the remaining after the back tax paid from the county last year was paid to the court, do you see if we ~"

Pierre came back to his senses, "Since Lord Art is interested, then we are not polite, leave 30,000 Fenni to Viscount Art, and take the rest of the 150,000 away, after six or seven years of hard work, there must be a harvest, otherwise how can I be willing, and how can that Viscount Art be relieved~"

Pierre said bleakly.

"That~ those soldiers and weapons and armor in the arsenal?" Jerry knew that Tiniez's 200 soldiers were Pierre's greatest achievement, and he could barely get his hands on 200 soldiers over the years.

"All the officers belonging to our cronies in the county soldiers were taken away, and the rest of the soldiers and all the weapons and armor were all left, which they exchanged for 150,000 pfennigh with us, and we must understand it in our own hearts. What's more, what use do we want these county soldiers? Do I dare to garrison outside Besançon? ”

Jerry nodded, "In addition, Viscount Art sent a message saying that he will not be stationed in Tignaz for the time being, let us stay for a little longer, and hold a banquet for you to celebrate your promotion to Viscount of the Court after he is busy with his affairs." ”

Pierre snorted, "All of Tignats is his territory, why am I still here?" I've packed my bags, and told the servants that we'll leave Tignats tomorrow at noon, and I've had enough of this hellish place. ”

On the twentieth of February, Viscount Pierre left the county town of Tignats with ten loaded chariots and ten servants, as well as thirty personal guards, and set out on his way north to the new fiefdom.

The front foot reluctantly sent off Viscount Pierre, and the back foot ordered the remaining hundreds of soldiers of the Wells Legion temporarily stationed in Lane Manor to be transferred to the county town of Tiniez, and then issued a notice to the people, sending someone to report to the whole territory......

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Chapter 378: The Land of a County